Bug#546291: gdm: erratically switches off computer without asking

Sat Sep 12 09:05:27 UTC 2009

Package: gdm
Version: 2.20.7-4lenny1
Severity: normal

The system is powered down immediately at unforeseeable times without even proper
shutdown, causing data loss and destroying recordable media being burned. This happens
around once or twice daily at irregular times. It is of no importance which programs are
running or if a screensaver is configured. It happens regardless of user activity, even in
the middle of the night.

It does not happen, however, as long as:
- GDM and X are not running at all
or:
- GDM is showing the greeter (i.e., X is running)
(I tested this for about a week each.)

--- i.e., it only happens in a user session

Once it has happened, the computer may even switch off once or twice a few seconds after
restarting. Then things calm down.

There are no discernable hardware problems such as overheating, fan failure or harddisk
failure. I have installed monitors.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 5.0.3
  APT prefers stable
  APT policy: (500, 'stable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.26-2-686 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=UTF-8) (ignored: LC_ALL set to en_US.utf8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages gdm depends on:
ii  adduser             3.110                add and remove users and groups
ii  debconf [debconf-2. 1.5.24               Debian configuration management sy
ii  gksu                2.0.0-8              graphical frontend to su
ii  gnome-session [x-se 2.22.3-2             The GNOME 2 Session Manager
ii  gnome-terminal [x-t 2.22.3-3             The GNOME 2 terminal emulator appl
ii  libart-2.0-2        2.3.20-2             Library of functions for 2D graphi
ii  libatk1.0-0         1.22.0-1             The ATK accessibility toolkit
ii  libattr1            1:2.4.43-2           Extended attribute shared library
ii  libc6               2.7-18               GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  libcairo2           1.6.4-7              The Cairo 2D vector graphics libra
ii  libdbus-1-3         1.2.1-5+lenny1       simple interprocess messaging syst
ii  libdbus-glib-1-2    0.76-1               simple interprocess messaging syst
ii  libdmx1             1:1.0.2-3            X11 Distributed Multihead extensio
ii  libfontconfig1      2.6.0-3              generic font configuration library
ii  libfreetype6        2.3.7-2+lenny1       FreeType 2 font engine, shared lib
ii  libglade2-0         1:2.6.2-1            library to load .glade files at ru
ii  libglib2.0-0        2.16.6-2             The GLib library of C routines
ii  libgnomecanvas2-0   2.20.1.1-1           A powerful object-oriented display
ii  libgtk2.0-0         2.12.12-1~lenny1     The GTK+ graphical user interface 
ii  libpam-modules      1.0.1-5+lenny1       Pluggable Authentication Modules f
ii  libpam-runtime      1.0.1-5+lenny1       Runtime support for the PAM librar
ii  libpam0g            1.0.1-5+lenny1       Pluggable Authentication Modules l
ii  libpango1.0-0       1.20.5-5             Layout and rendering of internatio
ii  librsvg2-2          2.22.2-2lenny1       SAX-based renderer library for SVG
ii  librsvg2-common     2.22.2-2lenny1       SAX-based renderer library for SVG
ii  libselinux1         2.0.65-5             SELinux shared libraries
ii  libwrap0            7.6.q-16             Wietse Venema's TCP wrappers libra
ii  libx11-6            2:1.1.5-2            X11 client-side library
ii  libxau6             1:1.0.3-3            X11 authorisation library
ii  libxdmcp6           1:1.0.2-3            X11 Display Manager Control Protoc
ii  libxext6            2:1.0.4-1            X11 miscellaneous extension librar
ii  libxi6              2:1.1.4-1            X11 Input extension library
ii  libxinerama1        2:1.0.3-2            X11 Xinerama extension library
ii  libxml2             2.6.32.dfsg-5+lenny1 GNOME XML library
ii  lsb-base            3.2-20               Linux Standard Base 3.2 init scrip
ii  metacity [x-window- 1:2.22.0-2           A lightweight GTK2 based Window Ma
ii  roxterm [x-terminal 1.11.1-1.1           multi-tabbed GTK+2 terminal emulat
ii  twm [x-window-manag 1:1.0.4-2            Tab window manager
ii  xterm [x-terminal-e 235-2                X terminal emulator
ii  zlib1g              1:1.2.3.3.dfsg-12    compression library - runtime

Versions of packages gdm recommends:
ii  gdm-themes                   0.6.1       Themes for the GNOME Display Manag
ii  whiptail                     0.52.2-11.3 Displays user-friendly dialog boxe
pn  xserver-xephyr | xnest       <none>      (no description available)
ii  xserver-xorg                 1:7.3+20    the X.Org X server
ii  zenity                       2.22.1-2    Display graphical dialog boxes fro

Versions of packages gdm suggests:
ii  libpam-gnome-keyring          2.22.3-2   PAM module to unlock the GNOME key
ii  locales                       2.7-18     GNU C Library: National Language (
ii  pm-utils                      1.1.2.4-1  utilities and scripts for power ma

-- debconf information:
  gdm/daemon_name: /usr/bin/gdm
* shared/default-x-display-manager: gdm